writers unlimited festival (the Hague)

Had a great time at the writers unlimited festival in Den Haag, reconnecting with old writer friends Asis Aynan, Helon Habila, Chika Unigwe and, of course, Willemijn Lamp, who invited me in the first place. Apart from the diverse programme of music and literature (the kora of Zoumana Diarra collaborating with Basile Maneka at the end was sublime!), I now have a whole new set of satellites in my galaxy of writer families - Rodaan Al Ghalidi, Leila Chudori, Dinaw Mengestu, Bernice Chauly, Kopano Matlwa, Edney Silvestre. I was honoured to read English translations for Bajan Matur who I shared a ride with to the airport where I'm sitting writing this short blog, along with Miguel Conde of flip festival http://www.flip.org.br/ . The writers meeting at the beginning was genius - but I'm happy to be heading home to the family - my family!

Why I Go Over

People in the UK still ask me why I go over to the US so much. I could give a whole list of reasons, including my love for interacting with audiences, the importance I attribute to writers from Africa (of various stripes and from a range of countries) being seen and identified as active and valuable contributors to the world's culture without disappearing under institutional labels like 'African-American' etcetera etcetera. However, the bottom line is very basic; in spite of my residence in the UK and my home in Ghana, my biggest audience (measured by the number of people who visit my websites, blogs, follow my facebook and twitter updates) is in the US. I think it's a matter of respect for authors to make themselves available to their audiences, because without them every author would be a person alone in a room doing weird things with words. That's why I go to the US so much.

Notes From a Warm Place

So, the people who invited me to read in Southern & Northern California have been sending me very lovely comments from the audience members and, I have pulled them together into a 14-line collage in celebration. My trip so far as been incredibly reaffirming - if I ever doubted that readers just love literature and want to be challenged and exposed to new worlds, my doubts have been blown away... Here's the collage/bricolage/commentage:

The poem he read to us which paralleled playing
a piano with playing basketball). I thought it was both
thoughtful and creative. Not only was he an attractive writer,
but his poetry was amazing, the perfect

antidote to an otherwise grinding week. His reading draws me in
and paints pictures; the way that he speaks of togetherness,
in terms of "we" instead of "I" says a lot about his character.
He speaks with such rhythm. I loved Nii's reading;

definitely my favorite guest speaker. The way he read
his novel was almost as if he was singing a song.
I love the way he incorporated language in his book.
He has such a wonderful spirit; I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his work.

I'm just about to order his book from Amazon.
I wish he could come back and read to us again!

The Bochum Disaster

Taken from: http://discussions.ghanaweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=111633&sid=c8cb1fc3aacc06cbef051326d9d6aec4

and

http://de.footbo.com/Teams/Ghana/History

The Bochum Disaster: 14th April 1993

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWIcxPMD7sw

On the night of 14 April 1993, Ghana’s senior National Team played then 1990 FIFA World Cup defending Champions Germany away at the Ruhrstadion, Bochum, Germany in an International friendly match. Parading then 3-time African Footballer of the Year Abedi Pele, back-to-back German Bundesliga Goal-king Anthony Yeboah among others, Ghana shocked the World Champions by taking the lead through Prince Polley in the 44th min., in front of 37,000 home fans. They took the 1-0 lead over Germany into half-time. Germany stormed back in the 2nd half and scored 3 quick goals in one minute - the 70th minute alone! - through Ulf Kirsten 70', Stefan Effenberg 70', Jürgen Klinsmann 70'. With the Ghanaian team in disarray, the World Champions added 3 more goals in the 82’, 86‘, and 88’, for a final score of 1-6.

This match is etched in Ghana’s football history as the worst defeat. It is believed that after the first half of this match the Ghanaian team had a disagreement over the sharing of the match bonus, and this is considered to have led to the downfall of the team in the match.

TEAM SHEET
Edward Ansah,
Tony Baffoe,
Stephen Frimpong Manso (Stanley Arboah 66'),
Emmanuel Armah,
Ali Ibrahim (Yaw Preko 81'),
Isaac Asare,
Abedi 'Pelé' Ayew
Yaw Acheampong,
Charles Akonnor (Sam Adjei 52'),
Anthony Yeboah,
Prince Polley Opoku.

Top 10 Reads and Rereads of 2010

I think I'll keep this as a simple list rather than go into details about why they are my top 10; that way I'll be able to come back occasionally to share some part of what made these books my top 10 in 2010. I'm ashamed to say only two of the books were actually published this year, which just shows how much I cling to old books. Maybe early in the new year I'll do a list of strictly-published-in-2010 books.


Carlos Fuentes - The Death of Artemio Cruz
Michael Ondaatje - The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
José Eduardo Agualusa - My Father's Wives
Niall O'Sullivan - Sonnet Hack
Junot Díaz - Drown
Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
Christian Campbell - Running the Dusk
Percival Everett - God's Country
Tom Sharpe - Wilt

Book I love the title of, but haven't gotten round to reading:

Et si Dieu me demande, dites-lui que je dors by Bessora (Gallimard)

Book I've been caressing and haven't opened because I fear I may love it too much:
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay (Maclehose)

Book I've been dipping in and out of constantly:
Monkfish Moon by Romesh Gunesekera (Granta)

The mostbeautifulest hardcover I've received this year:
Voice of America by E. C. Osondu (Granta, 2011)

Books I've recommended the most to people in the past year:

James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room
Mia Couto's Under the Frangipani
Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter
Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold
Charles Simic's A Wedding in Hell...and that's it for now!

African Writers' Evening video

Hisham Matar and I speaking about why we use English as our primary writing language:

Nominations galore

So, some of you will know that I am an editor as well as a writer - and I'm pleased to let the world know that I have been longlisted for the UK Young Publishing Entrepreneur award run by the British Council. It's a recognition of all my sleepless nights as an editor so I'm very very proud and to add to that the company, flipped eye publishing, is trying to rack up nominations for the Mashable Open Web Awards in the niche category for our online translation wiki, lexicon [ www.flippedeye.net/lexicon ] please add your nomination below - thanks!

In other news, I have a reading [mainly poetry] in London on November 13 at Lauderdale House, Highgate Hill, Waterlow Park from 8pm. Please come and support.
Event details are also on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events.php?ref=sb#/event.php?eid=27331766247





I think that's it for now - a real blog to come soon. So much has happened in the world!!